Gerraint Thomas made no bones about his disappointment at having to withdraw from the Tour de France after crashing on Sunday's ninth stage.

The Team Sky rider confirmed he's suffered a broken collar bone after his fourth fall in nine days on the world's most famous race.

"Such a s*** day," he tweeted as he flew home to recuperate.

"Nowhere to go when Rafa went down right in front of me. But I'm ok though, thanks for all your messages!"

Thomas came off on a rapid descent of the Col de la Biche and his departure is not just a blow personally but for Team Sky, who have come to rely on Thomas as Chris Froome's most reliable wing man.

"I got back on the bike and carried on down the descent, but when I got on the flat I knew something was wrong," Thomas earlier said.

Pulses of rain had made the descent treacherously difficult – and the skidpan conditions did not spare Thomas, who had worn the leader's fabled maillot jaune for four stages this year after his stunning time trial triumph in Dusseldorf.

Thomas is such a tough customer that he managed to complete the entire 2013 Tour de France course after fracturing his pelvis in the opening stage in Corsica.

But he has often been a victim of his own bravery, notably in the Rio 2016 Olympic road race, when he crashed on the final descent towards the Copacabana when well-placed to win a medal.

Thomas on stage nine before he crashed (Image: AFP)

Two years ago, he emerged almost unscathed after colliding with a telegraph pole when French rider Warren Barguil forced him to take a hairpin corner impossibly wide by straying into his line.

And earlier this year, Thomas – the nominated leader of Team Sky's pack – crashed out of the Giro d'Italia after a collision with a badly-parked police motorbike.

Thomas will be out of competitive racing for at least six weeks, effectively ruling him out of the next Grand Tour of the calendar, the Vuelta in Spain.

Thomas's Le Tour to forget

Thomas had been in yellow after the first stage (Image: AFP)

STAGE TWO : Thomas was involved in a pile-up which also brought down defending champion Froome as the peloton moved crossed from Germany into Belgium.

STAGE FOUR : Seconds before the smash which ended sprint legend Mark Cavendish's race in Vittel, Thomas was unseated in another crash involving multiple riders – although, like the one 48 hours earlier, he was blameless.

STAGE EIGHT: Misjudging a sharp right-hand turn on a brutal stage through the Jura mountains, the double Olympic track gold medallist was lucky to land in bales of hay after “front-flipping” over the handlebars. He was unhurt, but finished the stage with blood trickling down his leg.

STAGE NINE : But his luck ran out on the downward slopes of the Col de la Biche, the first of three uncategorised climbs in a monster queen stage. TV cameras did not pick up the instant Thomas went down, but it was a high-speed fall and it only took minutes to confirm he had been forced to abandon the Tour.

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